KOW - Timed Games & Death Clock

In my battle report from the weekend, I mentioned that we were playing a timed game and that we use the Death Clock mechanic. Death Clock means that when you run out of your allotted time you autolose the game.

Death Clock - Is Oblivion Really That Bad?

I was very surprised with some of the feedback that the battle report received on the KoW Fanatics FB page. Firstly, that New Zealand was the only jurisdiction in the world that played "Death Clock" and secondly, that some people would forgo playing in a tournament that used the rule.

My first response was "Wow" and the second was that some people needed a small dose of "HTFU" but it did get me thinking.

One of the things I like most about Kings of War is that it allows timed games. I used to get frustrated with games that didn't finish in the allotted time in WHFB. With no pressure on us we tend to relax and slow our decisionmaking down. I know I used to use the full time when I was playing Skaven. As a TO I got annoyed if players regularly only got through to Turn 3 in 2.5 hours.

With its rules, KoW allows you to assign the same playing allotment to both players. Locally for 2000 points we use 55 minutes. This gives you 5 minutes for deployment, seven 7 minute turns and a free minute to appreciate the good things in life. This allows you to have two hour rounds - and crucially get four rounds easily in for a one day event. Some Umpires have pushed to reduce the time further to 40-45 minutes but I'm not sure i buy their motivation of creating more pressure on the players.

The Dangers of Untimed Games - Picture of a Hut I Built Entirely From Compressed Toenail Clippings Grown in the Deployment Phase of a Local Dwarf Player

Without time pressure, some players will take forever. Measure every angle, determine every shooting lane, work out every combat outcome to three standard deviations etc. I feel that 55 minutes hits a sweet spot for everyone - the player, the opponent and the TO.

So if we accept timed games are needed and agree on the necessary allotment then we need a mechanism to penalise players that run out of time. The Death Clock with auto-lose is one mechanism but it seems that my thinking is out of sync with "world opinion". It appears that they use a "Dice Down" mechanic where the offender player is no longer able to make any dice rolls and all subsequent orders must be "Hold".

In the new Clash of Kings Organised Play book they have recognised that Death Clock isn't universally loved and suggest using the "Dice Down" mechanic. They do suggest that those players who time out should lose a battle point as a penalty.

Considering this I think that there is little or no different in outcome between Death Clock and Dice Down. I suspect there would likely be around 90% correlation. Where there could be variation is where time out happens very, very late, where both players are pushing the clock or where the offending player has built a substantial advantage. I may be overestimating the correlation but it feels "about right".

What I like about the CoK solution is that it actually punishes offenders more. If you accept that there is a 90% correlation, then they are still going to lose and given an additional penalty. I'm guessing that there will be a lot of players out there who will cry "Foul" at the extra penalty.

KoW- Mantic's Summer Campaign

I recently listened to the Countercharge podcast episode that featured Rob Burmann from Mantic Games. He was on there to discuss the upcoming Summer Campaign being run in Mantica.

He is currently writing the background material and the campaign book for the conflict. In this there will be new information on the motivation of each of the races plus rules for some new characters.

However what really interested me was some of the information on the actual mechanics. My take was that the races would be split into two factions - Good and Evil - so there will be marriages of convenience for the Neutral races. There are to be six regional hotspots within Mantica, each with their own background. You will be able to play battles that reflect these battlegrounds and the results will will affect the future history. This may be an expanding or contracting of the Abyss or the construction of a bridge by the Abyssal Dwarfs across the sea separating them from the Dwarf lands.

What is really compelling is that the effects that would occur based on the outcome in a particular theatre are spelled out in black and white in the campaign book - No Games Workshop Eye of Terror or Storm of Chaos campaign shenanigans where they airbrushed Chaos victories.

This then gives the community a real opportunity to participate and shape Mantic fluff going forward.

As a veteran of the Eye of Terror Summer Campaign I saw how the community can organise and actually try to implement a strategy. In today's world of Facebook it is far easier than it was then when we relied on yahoo-groups, forums and email.

My suggestion is that each race should organise their activities through their KoW Fanatics Race Sub-Groups e.g. Gathering the Herd etc. if each of these groups then appoints a representative to the Good or Evil High Command then some degree of Organisation in strategies and initiatives can be achieved. All this would require is two closed Facebook groups one for Good HQ and the other for Evil HQ.

Strategy could be agreed in those groups and directed back to the Race Sub-Groups e.g. Ogres we want you to direct your efforts in support of the Abyssal Dwarfs to try and dominate the theatre representing the Dwarf border. If success starts to mount then Ratkin could also be directed to post their battle results there.

I think that this would be game-building for the KoW community and really make us feel as we had skin in the game.

What an opportunity we have!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Review - Frostgrave Cultists

Inspired by pictures of Paul Welsh's Varanngur army on the KOW Fanatics Facebook page, I picked up a box of the Frostgrave Cultists from Mighty Ape.

These figures are made by Osprey/Northstar and come in a box of 20 multipart plastic figures.

In the box you get four identical sprues each with of which will make five figures.

You can see that there are five bodies - single part legs and torsos and then a multitude of heads, arms, weapons etc to customise them.

The models are a hard plastic - somewhere between GW and Mantic. IMO the detail is "softer" than GW but better than most other plastics on the market. There is minimal flash, few real mould lines and the figures are easily clipped and cleaned up.

Also included are extra "trinkets" to customise your models further.

There are two sprues of bases included if you'd like to use them in round base games.

Here is a set of models I made up to check the fit. They went together really easily with the ability to interchange all the piece so that you don't end with repetitions of the same pose if you don't want that.

The back few shows how seamless it was to add the trinkets to give your unit more personality.

One of the really great features of the box is how packed the sprue is. I chose to go with a selection of hooded heads on the models I constructed but also included are bare heads, heads with hats and even zombie heads. Similarly with arms, there are human and ravaged versions. I understand that the kit's parts are completely interchangeable with the standard soldier and other Frostgrave kits. This makes them very good value indeed.

Below are the pieces I had still left on the sprue when I had made my five models.

The thing I most like about this kit is how useful it would be for a multit of Kings of War armies. I intend using mine in a Night Stalker army but I could see how you could use them in Varanngur, Kingdoms of Men, The Brotherhood, Abyssals, Abyssal Dwarfs, Undead etc.

All in all I think that this is a great kit and great value. I'm itching now to get them painted up.

 

Posted with Blogsy

Battle Report - The Herd vs. Abyss in Control

Locally we have a tournament coming up in two weeks time. WSS-Summer is the first of the four event Warlord Super Series put on here in Wellington, aimed at growing the player base.

At this event I'll be using my Herd army. Throughout last year I played Ratkin and this time around wanted a complete change. My army is made up of figures from different manufacturers but the key distinguishing feature is that it has absolutely no ranged attack. I built it this way to make it as different from Ratkin as possible. No matter what genre of game I have always gravitated to a combined arms approach that softens the enemy up at range before engaging in the mid to late game. I wanted something that preformed differently, hence my Herd army.

Lliam and I are both playing at Summer so wanted to roadtest under tournament conditions. We decided to play Control with 55 minutes each on the clock including deployment.

You can see my deployment above. The piece of impassable terrain in my deployment zone was a challenge. It splits my army up and I felt I deployed badly as a result. I need to work on formulating a more coordinated plan in future.

Weekly Hobby Update

Still not much done on the creative side of the hobby this week though I managed to get back down to the forgeworld and fire up the 3-D printer.

One of the most important things with 3-D printing is ensuring that your print bed is level as everything stems from this. It dictates whether your nozzle under or over-extrudes determining how successful your print is. For whatever reason, I have struggled getting mine consistently in the "Goldilocks" zone. The tutorials will tell you that it is when the clearance is the height of a piece of paper so you need to adjust until it grips the paper. Last week I decided a more scientific method was to know the exact gap and adjust exactly. So I went to the autoshop and bought a $10 feeler gauge. Guess what? It works. I now adjust my nozzle to .08mm above the print bed and each print has been great.

Armed with my trusty feeler gauge, I have continued printing my trenchworks with another three straight sections finished Sunday. I should finish this project this week and then I'll switch to printing some KoW ziggurats.

I ordered some of the Frostgrave Cultists and these arrived late in the week. My intention is to make some up early this week and post a review.

A post on the KoW Fanatics Facebook page alerted me to the Mierce Miniatures Monster madness promotion currently running. Here you buy one monster and you get a second (up to the same value free). It runs until midweek. As it is my birthday this month I spoke nicely to the lovely Mrs. Dunn and she agreed I could order models that could then populate the present requirements of the extended family. Score!

Finally Lliam and I had a game this morning trying out our "newish" armies in light of the CoK 2017 pack. We have the first of the Warlords Super Series coming up in a fortnight and so it was an opportunity to practice for the event. I took some pictures and will get a battle report up in the next 48 hours.

KoW - Standard of Terrain

One of the things that I have been pleasantly surprised with over the past couple of years of wargaming is how the standard of tabletop terrain has improved.

I always felt that it was the forgotten cousin in tabletop gaming - people spent hours on their lists, months painting their armiesand then next to no time creating the battlefield on which they play.

A Key Part of the Trinity - Game, Army & Battlefield

There are a lot of reasons for this improvement IMO.

The first is that it was the area of the hobby that needed most improvement. When I first started playing GW games about 16 years ago, you'd go to tournaments and the terrain would be spartan. In Australian events it was not uncommon to play 40k on a wooden board with 4 pieces of terrain and Fantasy was little better. Locally, we had more terrain but nothing like today. This impinged on the quality of the game and so TOs needed make more. In a lot of cases this was mass-produced, rudimentary features with an emphasis on function over aesthetics.

Secondly, most people tended to play at clubs or local game stores. As a result the pieces used to take a bit of a battering - both on the table and when they were packed up at the end of the day. Over time gamer demographics changed and particularly as they got older (and generally both time and money richer) they invested in their own terrain. As this was an extension of THEIR hobby, the standard and care increased. A lot of gamers have home tables and that incentivises them to build the whole "package".

Last Couple of Years Have Seen the Arrival of the Themed Mousemat

Thirdly, the raw materials, be they terrain kits or hobby supplies, got better. In the past we had flock. Now you have a multitude of supplier who'll sell you static grass, tufts, snow etc. While with kits, we went from a cardboard/foam board buildings to where we now have plastic and resin buildings and trees (more becoming available digitally). Bare tabletops are gone and cloths and static grass mats are now being superseded by themed mousemat battlefields.

Coupled with this last point, is the growth of the digital hobby. Over the past few years wargaming has exploded on Facebook, in blogs, on YouTube etc. There are thousands of sources of inspiration and instructions at a click of your mousepad. Tutorials abound and generally the author is readily available to provide further assistance if necessary.

THM's Lava Terrain - I purchased it via Kickstarter and it took just over a day to paint!

All these things together have helped improve the standard of tabletop terrain exponentially. As a TO, l see part of my role to produce tabletop terrain that is not only functional but enhances the game both visually and in terms of experience. It is immensely rewarding for both players and organisers to have armies battling over an appealing battlefield - and it is the best advertisement for the game/hobby.

From the battle reports, blogs, YouTube channels, Facebook photos, the Kings of War community has really embraced this. Tournament organisers are spending time pre-event making terrain to ensure that their event best advertises the hobby. Each day I check out the digital KoW community I see something that gives me new inspiration in my own terrain-making.

I can understand why. The nature of our game with blocks of troops that are increasingly multibased are enhanced by giving them an aesthetically pleasing arena. Long may it continue.

 

Posted with Blogsy

KoW - Blood Boil (New Clash of Kings' Spell)

One of the new spells in the Clash of Kings book is "Blood Boil".

Blood Boil -12” range. When rolling to hit, roll a number of dice equal to the amount of damage on the target unit. Roll to damage with Piercing (1).

The spell can be taken by any non-Living Legend with access to spells and costs 25 points.

When details of the spell became available, the reaction in some quarters was reflective of the spell's name. There was a post on the Mantic Forum discussing the spell that eventually was closed by moderators due to the level of vitriol being induced.

That thread (which can be accessed here) did contain some analysis on the comparative utility of the spell by the book's author, Nick Williams. Much of that analysis centred on whether spamming Blood Boil "broke" the game. Nick was able to show that there were more efficient methods (damage per point spent) available through the use of Breath Weapons and other spells.

My interest was not so much around where spamming of certain things broke the game, but more in where the Blood Boil spell out-performed other spells, particularly Fireball and Lightning Bolt.

The table above shows the effect of Blood Boil based on the target unit's Starting Wounds and its Defence. At the bottom are the wounds caused by two common spells - Fireball (10) and Lightning Bolt (5). The colour coding in the table reflects relative performance. If the target unit has 8 or more wounds on it already then the Blood Boil spell statistically out-performs (green). The orange area (5-7 starting wounds) shows where Fireball outperforms Blood Boil and the red area where Blood Boil is out-performed by both spells.

This can be a little bit deceptive. The other variable that needs to be taken into account is the Nerve of the target unit. As Starting Wounds begins to approach Nerve the difference in damage output between the three spells becomes less important. 

e.g. Assume a Horde of Lycans (De 4+) with a Nerve of 15/17. The result you need to achieve is 17-2D6 which is on average 10. 

Here is analysis of the three different spells on this Lycan Horde varied by Starting Wounds

(W) means the unit can only be Wavered. The number is the Roll you must make on 2D6 to destroy the unit.

As you can see there is very little differentiation between the spells in terms of effect. At most there is a difference of 2 on the 2D6 roll but mostly it is 1. Differentiation increases at high Nerve Values and low Nerve Values. Therefore as Nerve increases on a target unit, Blood Boil will look better whereas at lower Nerve, Fireball and Lightning Bolt are your better options. This is all intuitive however I do think our minds tend to exaggerate the differentiation. Also once you hid 20 wounds any successful spell is likely to result in the unit being destroyed so variation is moot.

Looking through the books all but Dwarfs and The Herd have access to Fireball or Lightning Bolt. In this case I suspect that Blood Boil will become an extra tool in their kit. This is particularly true for most Herd armies that lack reliable shooting. I'm certainly going to look at trying to shoehorn it into my Herd to give me something I am lacking at the moment.

So is the item broken? No. Is it situational? Yes, but probably not as much as you thought.

KoW - New Trident Realms Figures Up For Pre-Order

The Trident Realms range gets a boost with Mantic putting the latest releases up for pre-order.

Wyrmrider Centurion

Naiad Centurion/Envoy

Leviathan's Bane

Water Elementals

I wasn't impressed when I saw the first pictures of the Trident Realms prior to release of the Army boxes. My main criticism was that Mantic appeared to have missed an opportunity to portray them in their best light due to a less than flattering paintjob and lacklustre posing.

Since then I have warmed to the range as Mantic have improved the release photos associated with the figures each time they have put out new material/news. This improvement has involved what appears to be a stronger paintjob, improved basing and choice of background. Personally I'm not convinced on the Elementals but overall the release looks far stronger.

One interesting point is that the Wyrmrider has been cast in resin rather than metal. Mantic have created their own in-house resin facility and this is one of the first products to be cast there.

The Trident Realms range is starting to bulk out now and the hobbyist has the opportunity to build an army that is uniquely Mantic.

KoW - Stealth and 4++ Weapons

One of the changes in the new Clash of Kings rules is that you get a cover save for weapons that hit on a 4+ . This modifier means that you need a 5+ to hit. The aim of the change - I believe - was to reduce the effect of Breath Weapons and missile spells that were being spammed in a lot of armies (Abyss, Ratkin and Goblins being the main offenders).

Overall I think this is a good change as it makes their effective use more skilful rather than the current point and click (maximum effect regardless).

My understanding is that until very late in the piece (maybe even the final proof), a target with "Stealth" was also going to receive the modifier.

I think it is a shame that they made this late change as I think the "Stealth" rule is a nice mechanic and it acts as a differentiator between units. Taking at the "macro" level, I would have thought the inability to be seen would provide the same level of protection as cover.

What it did get me to do was have a look through the books and see how many units it affected to determine just how big a deal it was. My list is as follows:

• Brotherhood - Swain's Rangers
• Salamanders - Hunters and Clutch Warden who have access to Ghekkotah Cloak
• Rhordia - Halflings (apart from mounted)
• Trident Realms - Siren
• EoD - Soulsnare
• Night Stalkers - Doh
• Ratkin - Blight including Lord, Assassin
• Varrangur - Night Raiders, Devourer
• Dwarfs - Herneas the Hunter
• Elves - Master Hunter
• FoN -Naiad Stalkers
• Abyss - Succubi including Temptress
• Twilight Kin - Assassin

I may have missed one or two but it is not a very long list. Well over 70% are captured in two armies - Rhordia and Night Stalkers. Now I tend to see a lot of results from events around the world and I can pretty categorically say that the podium is not being dominated by Halflings. On that basis the failure to include "Stealth" in the modifier seems to be directed at Night Stalkers.

Clash of Kings hits two of the most prevalent Night Stalker units - Fiends and Mind Screech - by reducing their Nerve. That may or may not lead to a rebalance in list composition - I haven't played against Night Stalkers enough to make a call.

What I am wondering is whether it was the concern of a "boost" for Night Stalkers that saw the late change removing "Stealth" from the modifier. I can see that the Rules Committee might think that the likely reduction in 4++ shooting overall (due to the modifier) might benefit Stealth units indirectly without the need to include within the modifier. 

I'd love to see any calculations that influenced the decision. I suspect that it may have been more of a "gut feel" decision, which I think that the RC usually get right. My own opinion is that they may have got this wrong and made a call on army balance rather than a pure rules mechanic call.

In the end it may not be major impact but if they have shied away from correcting a rules mechanic due to single army balance concerns then I think it is a divergence from their past modus operandi.

Disclaimer: I have purchased all the figures to build a Night Stalkers army.

KoW - Lute of Insatiable Darkness

"I Have A Use For You"

Unlike the plans of James Delaney, the utility of the new Magic Artefact, the Lute of Insatiable Darkness is pretty straightforward. For 20 points you get the ability to provide one of your Heroes with the Bane Chant (2) spell.

In 99% of armies (I'm a chronic underestimator), this item will be plonked onto the Hero providing the role of Army Standard Bearer. Previously, the ASB would have been naked or for those people who had to give him something - carrying the War Bow. However with the Lute he now has a worthwhile second line of business to Inspiring the troops. So ubiquitous is this item likely to be, rather than saying a "2000 point army", people might as well say "1980 points plus the Lute".

So why is it so good? Apart from the obvious addition of providing some armies access to otherwise off-limits Bane Chant, it helps those that do already have Bane Chant added flexibility. You will see Magic Users who have Bane Chant, taking a second spell.

For instance, in my Herd I have a Shaman with Bane Chant. Previously I was reluctant to take a second spell as there were very few turns when I did not need to use the option of adding Crushing Strength to a combat. However, now I can take the Heal Spell knowing I have potential not to need to cast Bane Chant.

In practice, the first spell I cast will be Bane Chant courtesy of the Lute. Where it is required for Piercing it has only a 25% chance of success (two 4+ results). However for Crushing Strength, it will likely be successful 75% of the time (one 4+ result) - this second case is one that I can plan around. Given success, I now have the opportunity with my Shaman to add Crushing Strength to another combat (with 87% chance of success) or instead use the Heal spell to recover on average 2.5 wounds.

The Lute, for 20 points, is just too good to leave at home.